does this mean all default matcaps should be updated including the ones brought from other softwares? since now they have to be rendered in 2 separate passes to get better results.
Not necessarily.
If you are happy with what you got then there’s no point. Now if you want to have a “persistent” specular when messing with the diffuse, or even turn off the only the specular of the matcap, then yep.
Not so useful. I guess I’ll keep rocking the old school matcaps 
it seems they are getting an update…u can keep using whatever you want but the matcaps with specular pass needs to be taken into consideration this will make the matcaps look less metalic (dark-ish) and with a proper diffuse.
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The big shadowmap refactor for Eevee is now ready for review.
https://developer.blender.org/D5659
When it gets committed, both the SSS shading and the shadow system will become easier to use while being higher quality.
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Some test with the patch:
*Old
*New
*Old
*New
With the new system there is visible jagged edges in shadows, which are softened increasing Cube Size setting and with Soft Shadows.
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Is this in the buildbot or does one have to compile it?
No, it will not be in master/buildbot until it is reviewed/accepted by other devs.
Aside from better quality there’s also fewer settings which have been hard to tune. Looking forward to it.
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Wow. That is like a night and day difference. Now I might be able to do stylised renders with harsher shadows thanks to this patch. 
I’m too curious if this remake of eevee shadows solves a problem with Mesa Gallium r600 drivers on some Radeon HD GPUs …
could you kindly upload your build to graphicall?
Sorry, my Linux builds are not portable. It’s really not easy to do portable builds on Linux, I’ve failed whenever I tried.
it doesn’t matter, zip the folder containing blender, I just need the executable …
I’m not sure what your plans are, here it is anyway (99% chance that it doesn’t work on your Linux system):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xl03u53ux61je1o/Blender_2.81_D5659.7z?dl=0
thank you so much mate
Is there now less light leaking?
Could someone do some test ( old vs new screenshots? ) where contact shadows are not enabled?
New Changes to LookDev mode By Jeroen , it is renamed to Material Preview and like always uses Eevee.
Rendered Mode now has the same options as Material Preview and it’s enabled by default and for both Eevee & Cycles. this will give Cycles the option to use the built-in HDRIs for lighiting.
Renderers will be able to customize the shading settings panel and add additional settings.
Shading Modes: Material and Render Preview
Cycles with built-in HDRI
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For those who know how to build Blender, new shadows system is in Master:
https://developer.blender.org/rBd8aaf25c23fa10ee121dc4fdd1cafe544bcca355
If you don’t know how to build blender, you should wait for new buildbot builds.
For now, old shadows methods have been removed, so I hope new method successfully completes all cases.
I am having some strange problems with some gaps and with Contact Shadows. Sun lamp is really difficult to set up in some cases. But I have not tried it much yet, I am not sure if all this is due to bad configuration on my part, limitations or bugs.
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You mean what you posted here? Eevee/Workbench development updates
If so it’s already in the nightlies, it doesn’t have a soft setting, so it’s always pixelated, it looks like there’s only VSM now, but no smooth setting, there’s also no artifacs if you don’t tick high bitdepth.
Now having Soft Shadows enabled is almost essential. So softness will depend on the radius/size of lamps (Angle for Sun lamp). Probably high values of Render samples will be necessary, so I’m not sure about how this will affect render times in general, and if some feature to increase only samples that affect soft shadows would be possible.
This depends on Shadows settings in Render Tab, Cube size (Cascade size in Sun lamp). Large values in these configurations with new method now do not slow down much viewport (apparently it is much faster than old methods)
Here this is explained:
http://developer.blender.org/D5659
I see, so they’re using PCF method now. The good thing is that now there’s less settings and to tweak and no light leak without touching anything as long as is faster and soft shadows can be there with samples higher than 1 it’s fine.